On May 6th, 2010, I joined my brother Mark, my dad Tom, and our family friend Bob Forrester on a guided fishing adventure with Beasley’s Fishing Charters based out of Victoria, BC, Canada.

The trip began with some Halibut fishing but we didn’t have the patience (which you need for Halibut in this area) and so we headed off to do some salmon fishing which Darren Beasley (our guide and the owner of the charting business) really excelled at; just 3 weeks before he helped us catch our limit of salmon in just 40 min! (that is 2 salmon per person!).

Once we got to the fishing spot, it took some time, perhaps 30 min before the first and largest salmon was caught by my brother. Soon after, we lost one, my dad caught one  and then not long after, Bob had one on and was reeling it in when my rod came to life and it was time for the battle you see below.

Before you watch the video below (or click here for the YouTube video), there are a couple of points you should read that might help you enjoy it more:

1. At the beginning of the video, I am reeling in the salmon rather effortlessly as it swam toward our boat. What you missed, however, was that I had just finished a fairly decent battle which wasn’t captured on this video.
2. Darren, our guide, grabs the net early on to grab Bob’s salmon as it gets close to the boat – it isn’t my fish in case that is confusing at the beginning.
3. After Darren gets the fish in the boat you will hear it slapping around and you will see the flasher on the fishing line from the other rod that had just landed the fish get very close to my head… it was a bit chaotic!
4. The audio is rather bad – sorry about that.
5. I have been told my bald spot is not NEARLY that bad… which is only slightly comforting after watching this video  Apparently, the sun enhances it… or maybe video enhances bald spots by a few inches just like it adds 10 lbs?

Click here to view the embedded video.

To top all of this off, here is my wonderful mug holding my trophy fish of the day  I have a lot of respect for that salmon… he really put on a show.

If you want to see an even bigger catch, and compare it to the fight I faced here, there is a 25lb Chinook that I caught 3 years before this on a fishing trip in Port Hardy, BC, Canada.

I had a few minutes of bliss on June 23rd wrestling with a 25 pound Chinook salmon near Port Hardy, British Columbia, Canada. This is a video of the catch! SIGH… it was a blast! Special thanks to Aaron for capturing this while I had my hands full… it is totally cool to watch it again… and again… and again

Reeling in a salmon near port hardy bc canada

Our guide was the superb Graeme Bull of “No Bull Charters” – if you need a fishing charter in Port Hardy I highly recommend his guiding services; we had a great time. Check out his site at http://www.nobullcharters.com